Too much information. Where does it all end? How about an app that shows the location of the field where the hops for your Bud were harvested, which fertilizers were used and how much the farm hands make per hour?

One thing that is encouraging on the app adoption front is how organizations like Code for America are bringing app developers into the picture. Apps are sometimes prototyped in a weekend, and fielded in 30 days. The challenge is, even the best apps tend to be useful the first few times, then the novelty wears off. Unless it becomes a part of our life, even a great app faces a short romance with most of us.

MetLife's 360-degree customer view project called the MetLife Wall took only three months because it was internal only. Customer-facing apps that involve long-term obligations are going to take longer, but not for technical reasons.

Freshness is crucial where beer is concerned. I buy brands that have freshness dating and avoid those that don't. I doubt I'd download an app for this purpose, but if I could just snap a picture of a bacode or text a code to certain number, I might go to the trouble. I could see a standards-based approach whereby content origin and labor practices are also displayed. When people buy clothes, they now want to know it wasn't made in some unsafe sweat shop with substandard wages. Give me one app that cuts across product categories!

As Chris mentions in the 2nd to last paragraph, no mobile app is an easy win. Enterprises and government agencies should (need to) to develop a mobile app quickly but I bet it's really frustrating when a good app falls on deaf ears. Strategy and foresight matter as much as development speed. A mobile app has to be a useful and unique or it doesn't stand a chance.

Very true. For a big enterprise, MetLife is moving fast with a 9-month time frame. While that is good for today, I have a feeling that a year from now, 9-months will seems slow. Enterprise IT shops are competing against each other, against the expectations of users (who all want things 'yesterday'), and with mobile app vendors who claim they can do everything in 1/2 the time.

I wouldn't be surprised to see MetLife turning around big mobile projects in 3-4 months if we talk to them again in late 2014. Hoberman and his team seems to get it.

MetLife is demanding speed, which is the right frame of mind for mobile projects. That 9 months is considered a long project is notable. Think of how many mobile project winners a CIO could create in a 3-year tenure. This is a whole new IT ballgame, pace-wise.

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